The little screen I’d installed on the front of bundit popped up to display one of my guide bunnies doing a little waving animation, and I blinked in confusion. Cerri had her hand on my shoulder, tense as we stared at the large mech that blocked the doorway.

The tiny cyber bunny on the screen rushed out of frame, then hauled a mail icon back like it was full of bricks. Bemused, I reached out and pressed the button.

Both of us jumped in surprise when it flickered to life with a video message. Warren’s face filled the tiny screen, haggard and drawn as though he hadn’t slept for a while.

“Hey guys,” he croaked, smiling weakly. “Some shit has gone down, and all at the same time, so I’m going to talk quickly. Those borg fuckers are out there in the wrecks. Something must have tipped them off that there’s been movement here, so I’ve powered down the ship and hidden it. I’m using bundit for this message because I think she’ll be shielded enough inside the ship to stay hidden but operational.”

His smile fell, and he glanced away from the camera as he continued, “Unfortunately, I can’t stick around to babysit our new prize, because my real life situation is deteriorating rapidly. There was a power outage and a cyber attack at the hospital, and they’re pulling me out for an emergency surgery in five minutes. FTLN access is technically down, but for some reason I can still access the game, hence why this message is here.”

Glancing downwards, he stopped speaking for a moment as if listening to someone. “Okay guys, that’s it. There’s people in the hospital, bad ones. I’m being pu—“

He vanished into a dusting of pixels and light before he could finish his sentence, leaving an empty bridge in his wake.

“I’m going to make some inquiries, hold on,” Cerri said, breaking the tense silence. “Someone will know what’s happening. Warren was in an SAI run hospital for those who were thinking about digitization to escape health conditions.”

I waited patiently for her people to get back to us, and while I did that, I snuggled in against my girlfriend. Our friends, our crewmate… he might not make it? He might be dead? Anxiety assaulted me from every direction, eating at my insides like acid.

The notification ping just about sent me spinning from my skin like a spaceship violently decompressing. Clutching Cerri tightly, I tried not to think about anything at all as I waited for her to read.

“Holy fuck,” she muttered, after several long moments of silence. “This is the boldest our enemies have been so far. They attacked the Toronto Intensive Care and Digitization hospital in force. Completely took us by surprise.”

Who is it? I sent to her, as my throat had closed almost completely. Who is attacking, and is Warren safe? What about the other patients?

“They don’t know who it is. As for Warren, it looks like he's still in surgery,” Cerri said, her voice high and strained. “They can’t risk digitising him in his current state, so they’re trying to stabilise him so they can do the transfer. His… oh my god.”

I shrank further as worry pulsed in my mind like a second heartbeat. What? What is it?

“They had no way out for anyone inside the hospital except… except through the FTLN nodes in the bodies of the SAI that worked there,” she said, her voice almost a whisper as she shuddered at the horror of what was happening inside that hospital. “The hospital is surrounded, the authorities are absent, and they have nowhere to run. Every single flesh and blood human is being digitised in order to help them escape, because the attackers are executing everyone inside as they fight through.”

“Oh… god,” I whispered.

“My friend said he’d keep us updated on the situation,” she sighed, closing the window with a wave of her hand. “We should focus on the problems in this universe, first. Nothing we can do for Warren right now.”

As she finished speaking, she seemed to realise how shaken I was. "Hey, hey, it'll all be okay. Little Alia, it will work out. Have faith in our people. They'll save Warren."

Quivering, I stepped out of her embrace and took a long, deep breath to calm myself. “Okay. What do we do about the cyborg ships?”

“I’m not sure, but you said the Turshie was in good shape?” she asked, glancing at bundit before she turned her attention back to the bridge.

“Yes,” I nodded, walking over to my station. “I had to make modifications for a smaller crew, plus hooking things up for Elissa to control.”

“Alright, well… we need our pilot and our ship AI. Let me tell them to swap over,” she said, and walked past her chair… and up to the captain’s seat. Right, Roger wasn’t here, so someone had to take charge.

Less than a minute later, Gloria rushed into the bridge and vaulted the central bannister that divided the upper bridge from the lower bridge. The badger people who used to call this ship home hadn’t trusted many digital or even electronic interface equipment. Instead, they preferred physical, mechanical controls for their ships, so the pilot’s chair wasn’t dissimilar from something you might find in a 20th century long ranged bomber. I understood why, too. If you were fighting an enemy with superior electronic warfare capabilities, your best bet was to go old school.

“Elissa should be syncing with the ship’s systems now,” she said, sliding into her seat.

“Correct,” our ship friend said from the speakers in our consoles. She was using her normal voice, too, not her strange anime one. “Also, the devs have given us authorisation to use time dilation in the game.”

“As much as our synchronisation can handle?” Cerri asked, glancing at a screen to her left.

Elissa made an affirmative noise. “Yeah. Just thirty five percent for you all, but I can run up to three hundred percent with the current capabilities of the ship. I do think we’ll need to redesign the computer systems from the ground up once we have an understanding of the cyborg zombies’ capabilities.”

“If they’re stronger than our tech, we keep things as they are, if they aren’t, then we change everything?” I asked, already wondering if there was a way to get around it regardless.

“Pretty much,” she replied, sounding distracted. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Okay, time to get rolling,” Cerri said, pulling the command seat enclosure completely around herself. Unlike our old ship, which had been all thin stainless steel arms and glass screen panels, the bridge stations here were bulky and could probably stop small arms fire.

“Our plan is to get the hell out of this system and hopefully lose these fools in the aether. Alia, since the others aren’t around, I need you on weapons,” she said, turning to look over her shoulder at me. “Elissa will keep an eye on ship systems and call you if things go bad. Go to the maximum time dilation you can handle.”

“Yep,” I agreed, cranking up the mental dial. The speed of my thoughts leapt forward, and warning chimes sounded as the disconnect between mind and body became overwhelming. I quickly lowered it again, searching for the point where it would give me the most advantage without unceremoniously dumping me back in our apartment.

It was fucking wild, the way I could think at a mile a minute while simultaneously perceiving time at its standard rate. You’d expect everything to slow down around me like I was a speedster from a comic book or something, but it was the opposite. I could just squeeze more thoughts into the same amount of time.

“Elissa, bring the reactor online and fire up the engines,” Cerri continued. “Gloria, once you have power, you’ll need to begin evasive manoeuvres as soon as possible. There’s a delay between the moment we will be visible on their scanners and when we can move, so shots could already be coming in.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gloria replied, all business as she flicked switches and gripped the HOTAS setup I’d rigged for her. The old controls had been made for people much bigger than us.

A low, barely perceptible rumble rolled through the ship as the reactor hummed to life, and I saw Gloria twist to look back at Cerri. “Do you have a plan for when this show gets rolling?”

“Somewhat,” she replied, still sounding distracted as she flicked through what looked like a ship’s inventory screen. Wait, was she copying code into something? I could see her pasting massive text files from her personal clipboard into the ship’s computer.

Frowning, I clicked my ocula’s zoom on and inspected the screen. I couldn’t see what she was placing the code into, but what I saw was… terrifying.

Cerri, is that…? I began, sending the message to her privately.

She started in her chair and turned to look at me, her expression akin to that of a broker with a conscience making a deal that would ruin someone. The digital equivalent of a bio-weapon? Yes. We were able to study a strange variant SAI who gave up full sentience in exchange for the power to wreak havoc on any digital entity. I figure it will be useful here.

“Alright ladies, the reactor is hot, engines spooling up,” Gloria called, bringing both of us back into the moment. “Scanners have missiles inbound. Time to get real!”